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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28483434">In the Space Between</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/GealachGirl/pseuds/GealachGirl'>GealachGirl</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Daredevil (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>And a happy ending, Angst, Banter, Disaster fic, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Matt and Jess are bros, Matt isn't allowed to be, Referenced Death, Referenced violence, Slow Burn Romance, and Hope, background Jess/Luke, but there's light, despite the weight, exploring the senses, liminality, no one is an island, so destroyed buildings, some on-page violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:47:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>13,057</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28483434</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/GealachGirl/pseuds/GealachGirl</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When the world changed on Matt again, it happened in a flash. And this time it happened to everyone. </p><p>In one second, he found himself on the streets with other powered people, hiding from the people he's trying to help, in danger for his powers, and staying away from the person who matters most in order to protect him. </p><p>Matt knows there's an end. Believes it. He just has to make it there. The only question is how long he'll to have to last before that. <br/>And if he can.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Matt Murdock/Franklin "Foggy" Nelson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>DDE’s 2021 New Year’s Day Exchange</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The Aftermath</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/brittlestars/gifts">brittlestars</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The shape of this fic changed so much, but it always centered around the same core: no one should live through disaster alone and though sometimes it feels like death and chaos and cruelty are all that’s left, it’s not true. </p><p>Prompts used: liminality and "Which of Matt's abilities isolate him, and which bring him closer to other people? How does Matt perceive the world? How does this perception change over the events of his life? Does Matt attempt to demonstrate his perception to others, and, if so, how?"</p><p>These were *excellent* prompts and that's why this fic grew to the point of needing to break into three chapters.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Matt stood on the edge of a cliff.</p><p>No.</p><p>It was a rooftop.</p><p>But it might as well have been a cliff for all that they felt different to him. The dynamics of space were still distorted and after several weeks of it, Matt had started to think he might have to get used to it.</p><p>It was especially hard because the ambient noise he was used to was gone now, ensuring that what was left echoed.</p><p>Like the violent robbery in progress. Or any of the other screaming and crying ringing through the empty, torn-up streets.</p><p>The echoes stretched space so much that details vanished. All that remained was noise.</p><p>Matt sighed, felt a pang of guilt about that, along with a flash of pain on his left side, and dropped down to the fire escape.</p><p> </p><p>“What the hell are you doing here?” a dry voice demanded.</p><p>Matt swallowed a groan. “I’d think it would be obvious, but maybe it doesn’t look the way it feels.” He could make an educated guess at the way Jess’s face looked.</p><p>“Fucking seriously,” she hissed, bending down and pulling him roughly to his feet. All of her muscles were tensed, especially those in her jaw and Matt might have made a comment if he couldn’t sense the genuine concern pouring out of her. She was close enough that she registered clearly in his radar.</p><p>She seemed as tired as him, and her clothes and hair drowned in the acrid, sharp stench of smoke. Despite his flagging energy, all of Matt came to attention at that smell, but then its details registered and he relaxed again. The fire hadn’t been chemical or electrical.</p><p>And Jess wasn’t burned, so he forced himself to drop it.</p><p>There were more pressing matters. Always.</p><p>Her heartbeat hummed angrily along and Matt followed as she dragged him with her. He went because Jess had found him dazed on the ground and he probably deserved whatever she had to say about that.</p><p>The streets were dangerous all the time now, but even more so for anyone recognized as having powers. Not just because of the subtle threat of prejudice, but because it was widely understood that the current situation—the chaos, the death the destruction—was the fault of powered people.</p><p>Technically the Avengers, but any powered person would do for violent stress relief.</p><p>Matt had tried so hard to hide, for so many years, but it wasn’t possible anymore. He had to help, and being seen doing it was unavoidable nowadays.</p><p>People were on edge, desperate and grieving and terrified, and they did what people do. Matt tried not to take the lashing out personally, but he did have to recognize it. He almost laughed when he thought of how Foggy would react to him finally being careful.</p><p>“Have you found a new hideout?” he asked, hoping Jess wasn’t too angry to answer him. Figuring it out for himself would take too much time. Space didn’t feel the same anymore. She grunted, which could be read either way. “I’m going to have to go out for another patrol later.”</p><p>This time, he could practically hear her roll her eyes. Her grip on his arm changed, too. Tightening and then loosening to shift closer to his elbow.</p><p>“I’ll show you where it is, dumbass.” The words left in a grumpy rush, but tension still vibrated through her. He could feel it under his skin where she held onto him.</p><p>“I’m okay,” he told her. “Overstimulation. My radar sense is still…” Matt didn’t have a word for it. Sometimes he could feel the world around him almost like normal, like before. But usually it was off-kilter. Some things were clear when they were close enough, but everything else was twisted. Warped. Blurry.</p><p>And sometimes it all slammed into him in overwhelming detail and intensity.</p><p>Jess sighed, so quietly it didn’t sound intentional or like Matt was meant to hear it. He still had his hearing at least.</p><p>“You know that doesn’t mean anything to me. Your freakshow is your business.”</p><p>Matt smiled and chuckled, but couldn’t stop the flicker of irritation. Jess had seen him in action, and he’d filled in the blanks for what she hadn’t figured out for herself, but he knew she didn’t really understand it. No one did.</p><p>Well. That wasn’t quite true. But Matt tried to push Foggy out of his head when he could.</p><p>“I don’t think that’s true anymore, Jess,” he said. “We should know all the resources we’re working with.” He paused before he decided he <em>had</em> to mention the other thing. “Besides, you don’t seem to think that with Luke.”</p><p>“Shut it, Murdock,” she grumbled. But Matt could feel how her skin warmed. He smiled for real this time.</p><p>Everything about his world had changed again, and he’d lost things again, but this time he’d been able to hold onto others.</p><p> </p><p>Matt perched on the edge of another building. This time he could sense other walls surrounding him, so he felt less exposed and vulnerable. From the temperature on his skin, he could tell the sun had dipped far enough to make moving in the open safer.</p><p>Still, he was as close as he usually felt comfortable.</p><p>Every other sense was focused on the apartment. The shuffle of footsteps and the tripping heartbeat. The omnipresent smell of adrenaline and fear. A clenched, mostly empty belly.</p><p>All of Foggy’s muscles were tight and they rarely loosened. Matt could only imagine how much pain he must be in.</p><p>But Foggy was okay, his senses told him. Okay as he could be. Okay as Matt could make him.</p><p>After everything went to hell with chaos exploding everywhere and people dying left and right, it had taken all of Matt’s power to secure Foggy and convince him to stay safe until it was over. He’d come back when it was over.</p><p>Then it never ended. People still died constantly. The chaos had morphed from sudden mass-failures into lawlessness and the consequences of stretched resources.</p><p>Matt’s job had suddenly gotten more demanding than he could have imagined it being. As much as he hated admitting it, it was almost unmanageable.</p><p>But he could still do this easily enough.</p><p>Matt didn’t check on Foggy every day, but close to it. It was hard to avoid people’s eyes all the time, friend or foe. But even with his stresses, Foggy’s presence lightened a bit of Matt’s load, gave him space to breathe.</p><p>He crept a little closer to capture more of it.</p><p>A rare smell drifted over him, sharp but subtle, almost-nothing until it passed through his sinuses and settled, much like the way the vodka tasted. Matt raised his eyebrows; Foggy must have been sitting on that bottle.</p><p>Matt’s load grew heavier again and he abandoned the idea of creeping.</p><p>Foggy was muttering under his breath, feet still treading back and forth along the same path. And then there was a sharp gasp that cut into Matt’s ears, and the sudden increase in his heartbeat’s tempo followed closely behind.</p><p>Matt had gotten too close.</p><p>He heard Foggy’s throat moving and felt the smallest tremble shudder through his frame. Matt had no doubt Foggy was staring, his breath tearing through his nostrils almost as fast as his heartbeat.</p><p>His voice was ragged. “Wh-<em>Matt</em>? I-it’s been…it has to have been months.”</p><p>And there was a good reason for that.</p><p>With every fiber of his being, Matt focused on Foggy’s vitals for any reason to be concerned. Finding nothing, he turned away from the window and poured that focus on the wobbling world around him. Making an educated guess, he leapt at a neighboring building and used even more focus to make his way to its roof.  </p><p>With all of that to fill his senses, he could push away Foggy’s distress.</p><p> </p><p>“You look like shit.”</p><p>“Well I wouldn’t know, would I?” His voice was hotter than he meant it to be, sharper and angrier. All that anger had finally burned away, so now Matt really only felt the need for a shower and sleep—one of which he could get.</p><p>Or so he’d thought.</p><p>Matt had never met anyone with loud eyebrows, but he couldn’t think of a better way to describe Jessica Jones. They practically yelled at him, and he could only assume by her unimpressed silence that that they were doing it from her hairline. And that just breathed new life into the simmering fire.</p><p>But he wanted to be angry.</p><p>In the blink of an eye, the world had turned inside out. People disappeared, the whole city turned into one big collision, and suddenly Matt had to adjust to a brand-new city with its new geography and soundscape, which now included a numbing amount of misery.</p><p>Then some people turned their fear into anger, and now he almost wished for Fisk or the Hand. Some central source of the violence. Nothing made sense anymore, and every death he heard was more pointless than the last. And he couldn’t picture an end.</p><p>“You’re bleeding again,” Jess told him. “And you look like you rolled around in a Dumpster.”</p><p>“It’s probably all the ash. Now we smell the same.” Less sharp.  </p><p>After leaving Foggy’s, Matt had looked for a big, violent group he’d been tracking for a while and dedicated himself to breaking them up. Exhaustion pulled at him from every direction.</p><p>Jess shifted her posture onto her back leg and the shuffle of leather made him think she crossed her arms. Matt could guess her eyebrows rose again, too.</p><p>Her breathing was steady, but he could hear her tension. Sharper than usual, and probably pointed at him.</p><p>“I don’t know why I bother trying to talk you out of stupid shit. You just do it anyway.” But she stepped up to him and took his arm and fell into step beside him. They weren’t quite at the new hideout. Matt could tell now that he wasn’t moving anymore and he bothered to pay attention to his senses.</p><p>Jess tried to guide him, but he tore his arm out of her grip. “You and Foggy could start a club,” he growled. The anger crawled over and inside of him. He felt like he was burning, but he couldn’t even hear any more targets for it anymore. Jess worked as well as anything.</p><p>“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Jess growled back, grabbing his arm again. This time she actually gripped and there was no getting away. Matt wondered which words would make her give up on him.</p><p>“What did you do?” she demanded. </p><p>Unfortunately, Jess was able to pluck at his guilt as well as Father Lantom or even his mother. Another club she and Foggy could start together.</p><p>“I could leave you here,” she continued when he didn’t answer. “Let you fend for yourself like you want.” She said it even as she continued dragging him down the street. As far as Matt knew, she’d lost everyone but him and Luke. And somehow, she preferred to be around him.</p><p>Still, he was tempted to test her on it. Then he nearly clipped his shoulder on…something. Matt aimed his best glare at her instead. “I got too close and he saw me. Talked to me.”</p><p>“So you went out to get your ass kicked.” She didn’t sound impressed. “I thought exorcisms were more complicated than that.”</p><p>His glare improved. “I’m trying to keep him safe.”</p><p>A magnificent scoff left Jess’s mouth. “Nothing’s safe anymore Murdock.</p><p>“And I—”</p><p>“No. Murdock. You can’t save the world. All of this,” she gestured, “isn’t up to you. It’s everywhere and you can’t keep him away from it. Nelson isn’t stupid, and he’s safer than us.”</p><p>“You don’t understand,” he pushed back before she could go on. “He’s all I have left, and he can’t be around me because you’re right. We aren’t safe. I was hoping he’d forget, o-or realize he was better off.” But no, Foggy had sounded heartbroken and relieved alongside the shock.  </p><p>Jess’s grip on his arm shifted up to his shoulder and she slammed him back into rough brick.</p><p>Matt could hear her strength vibrating through her tense muscles. It was always odd, but far from the first time he had. Like an extra thread of steel weaving through her muscle fiber. It only flared like this when she was agitated. And that impression was echoed by the sound her diaphragm made as it pushed her breath in and out.</p><p>Her heart raced and she’d started grinding her back teeth.</p><p>“You can’t fix this, and I’m not going to let you kill yourself trying,” she hissed at him. “Either stay away from him, or find some common sense.” Her words held a tremble, barely noticeable under the anger, but Matt didn’t hear a physical cause. Just the stark words.</p><p>“I can’t stay away,” he replied. All of his tension went out with the words, leaving him at the mercy of that terrible realization. He was going to put Foggy in danger no matter what.</p><p>“Then there you go.” She eased the pressure on his chest to let him away from the wall, but kept a hold on his arm.</p><p>Matt wanted to pull it away, but he still wasn’t quite sure where he was—too much rubble and walls where there shouldn’t be any—and he looked too much like Matt Murdock right now to get away with pretending to be sighted.</p><p>So instead, he held on and tried to ignore all of the worry pushing at him—his own and the whole damn city’s.</p><p> </p><p>The block was quiet once Matt filtered out the wind and the distant thunder. Rain was coming, he could smell it and feel the air pressure shifting.</p><p>And tonight, his senses were balanced. So Matt knew from the slight change in temperature when he was in front of Foggy’s window, and backed off accordingly.</p><p>Tonight, he couldn’t smell alcohol. Foggy sounded better. He was sitting, his breathing was even and relaxed—close to sleep—and Matt heard the occasional sound of paper brushing against paper and skin.</p><p>For a moment, Matt allowed himself to sink into that sound and let it relax him. Let him imagine that they were together, in one of their apartments, soaking in each other’s company. The stress didn’t sit so heavily on Foggy, and Matt wasn’t so damn tired.</p><p>Matt forgot why doing that was such a bad idea until his heart started aching.</p><p>“You came back.” The voice was far too close, not to mention that it shouldn’t have been there at all.</p><p>Matt startled and almost reflexively jumped off the fire-escape. But he recognized Foggy’s tone of voice and he knew it wouldn’t help him anymore. Even though Foggy didn’t know where to find him, somehow Matt would never live in peace if he escaped now. Foggy would find a way.</p><p>“I did,” he replied. “I wanted to make sure you were okay after yesterday.”</p><p>“After you ran away from me,” Foggy corrected. “Again.”</p><p>“You should probably expect it by now,” Matt reasoned. Then Jess’ words ran back through his head. They weren’t her exact words, but he’d thought of them because of her. “I want to apologize too. I’m sorry for scaring you, and for making you upset. I didn’t mean for you to see me.”</p><p>Foggy’s shoulders firmed and he repositioned his jaw, and Matt knew he was being glared at. “That’s your idea of an apology?”</p><p>Matt shrugged. Maybe he could upset Foggy enough that he could go back to protecting him from a distance. “You should probably expect that, too.”</p><p>“Fuck. You. What the hell?” Foggy said in a single rush of breath. Matt could sense the flush rising over Foggy’s skin. “Why? Why are you being like this?”</p><p>Matt dug deep into the ball of self-hatred that had resurfaced and felt his mouth twist into something harsh. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m doing what’s best. I’m checking on you and then I’m leaving because I can’t be seen here and you can’t be seen with me.”</p><p>Silence met his words.</p><p>Well, Foggy’s breath sawing through his throat and the pounding of his heartbeat. By his side, his hands closed into fists and opened a few times.</p><p>Matt couldn’t tell if Foggy was angry enough, but he was approaching it. Disappearing again would probably take care of the rest.</p><p>So Matt shifted on the fire escape, turning his head back toward the street. Matt didn’t know the name of the howling that had started in his head and he wasn’t interested in learning it. Already, he thought forward to the group he’d sensed prowling around this area and what he should do to get them to leave.</p><p>He didn’t expect the hand that closed around his wrist. Foggy wasn’t quite strong enough to overcome Matt’s center of gravity, and no matter how surprised he was, Matt knew how to keep his feet.</p><p>“What are you doing?” The words rumbled out of him, low and warning.</p><p>“Not letting you leave. Again. Because I’m fucking sick of it.” Foggy’s voice had turned into a brick wall, and Matt tensed. “What are you going to do, Daredevil? Hit me?”</p><p>The idea made Matt sick. More than the thought of Foggy being found and connected to him. And he knew that doing anything to break Foggy’s grip would only hurt him.</p><p>“What’s it gonna be, Daredevil?”</p><p>Matt ground his teeth and accepted the option he hated the least. “We need to get out of the open. Get away from the window.”</p><p>Foggy’s grip didn’t change, forcing Matt to follow him as he silently stepped back into his apartment. Tension sang through his body.</p><p>When they were far enough inside, Foggy let him go and went back to draw the curtains across the window. In this space before the scolding started, Matt tried to map out the apartment.</p><p>It was small—and sparse if he was reading it correctly. He could smell old food and sweat that carried the remnants of a lot of stress.</p><p>“So, what now?” Foggy’s arms were crossed and he stayed near the window, across the room from Matt. His voice matched the distance.</p><p>Matt sighed and dragged a hand over his face, removing his mask in the process. “I don’t know, you’re the one who pulled me in here.”</p><p>“Because I’m tired of you running away. What happened to Murdocks always getting up?”</p><p>Matt’s bearing stumbled. The flash of pain ran all his other thoughts out of his head, boiled them down to the simple truth. “I’m trying to protect you!”</p><p>“No. That’s not good enough.” Matt tried to interrupt and Foggy carried on over him. “Shut up. I don’t care what you have to say about this right now. You already gave me your explanation.” His body trembled, like he was holding onto his restlessness, and Matt got the impression that Foggy was no longer staring directly at him.</p><p>Slowly, minutes later, the tone of the room shifted. Foggy’s anger cooled, replaced with slumped shoulders, quick, cut-off movements and a return of the pacing.</p><p>Matt tipped his head to the side, taking in the new body language and the new hormones that filtered into the apartment’s air. The stillness and silence that settled around them despite Foggy’s pacing.</p><p>His best friend was scared. And sad. The glowing relief from yesterday was gone.</p><p>“You left.” Foggy’s voice was clearer, like he was looking at Matt again. “You fucking left me here, and you disappeared. I didn’t know if you were dead. I told myself you couldn’t be, just so I could sleep, but I’m not stupid, I know what’s going on out there. I hate it. Everything’s exhausting and terrifying and I worried I lost you to all of that.” His hands lifted to push through his hair, releasing a cloud of sweat and faint shampoo.</p><p>“You don’t understand, Matt.” His voice had deflated again. “You think you worry about me? I worry about you, too. Probably just as much. And it felt like you were giving up.”</p><p>“Really? Hiding from angry mobs of desperate people and saving them from each other, not to mention from themselves, is how we’re defining giving up now?” Matt couldn’t help the way his voice broke and leaked how much that hurt him. He couldn’t help the flash of defensive anger either.</p><p>It felt like all he did was try anymore. And Foggy wasn’t allowed to tell him that he didn’t.</p><p>“Not on Daredevil, or the city or whatever, but on yourself,” Foggy replied, sounding just as defensive and tired as Matt felt. “Like you’ve tried to do before.” Foggy pointed his next words at the floor, so they bounced off the thin carpet and filtered through the hair hanging past his cheeks. “It seems a hell of a lot like you’re giving up on me.”</p><p>A stone stuck in Matt’s windpipe, stealing his voice. “What?”</p><p>“I’m sorry.” The smell of salt drifted from Foggy’s direction. “I’ve just been so alone, and so worried about you. And about what’s going on because everything’s insane. And when I saw you yesterday, it was the first real bright spot I’ve had.”</p><p>Thoughts didn’t come into the decision. One second Foggy was feet away, and the next he was in Matt’s arms. Matt had been determined to leave this situation with his carefully constructed distance intact, but he couldn’t listen to Foggy’s sadness anymore.</p><p>Foggy returned the hug immediately, clutching Matt’s clothing in tight fists.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Fog,” he whispered into his hair. Up close like this, Matt remembered what it was like to be warm and safe.</p><p>“Then don’t leave,” Foggy whispered back. Matt tensed and Foggy held him tighter. “I understand that you say it’s dangerous, but I’m in danger anyway. It’s everywhere. And I’d feel better seeing you.”</p><p>Matt wanted to argue that Foggy was in far less danger now than he’d be putting himself in, but Foggy’s words were effective. Matt didn’t want to hurt Foggy at all—couldn’t anymore, not after everything—and staying away after this would undermine that. Before, he wouldn’t have hesitated because he knew he was right, but now he didn’t have the stomach for it.</p><p>He ran a gloved hand over Foggy’s shoulders and moved his face away. “Alright, I’ll come out when I visit.”</p><p>Foggy laughed and it shook his body against Matt's. It was shaky and thin, but it still felt like holding warmth itself, and Matt decided then that he'd let himself be selfish.</p><p>"I had a feeling I was being watched over, but I didn't want to hope for anything."</p><p>"I'm going to keep watcing," Matt promised, tightening his arms.</p><p>Outside, the rain drummed against the ground.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Recovery (or the start of it)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Matt contemplates safety and whether it lasts.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Matt grimaced at the explosion of noise. He’d heard it blocks away and tried bracing himself before he got to the door, but it didn’t end up helping. Stepping inside was worse, and Matt desperately built up his filters.</p><p>Frayed as they were, their effect was hit or miss anymore, so he was resigned to gritting his teeth and cursing himself.</p><p>Living with so many more people shouldn’t be so hard. He’d lived in crowded dorms. In a crowded city. Matt could handle this.</p><p>The noise still grated, wiping away any of the ease he’d managed to find with Foggy and leaving all of the frustration.</p><p>“What’s your problem?” Jess grumbled. She smelled like drywall and blood. Matt wanted to ask what had happened in Harlem, but he’d just promised Foggy he’d spend more time with him and he couldn’t do that dead.</p><p>Still, he focused a little harder until he was sure she wasn’t still bleeding. He got a headache for his effort.</p><p>“No problem,” he dismissed. Just an endless barrage of sensations—the normal noise he associated with people and was used to, but also the strange feeling of being around so many people with superpowers. Matt had never been able to explain it, and he wasn’t even sure which sense picked it up, but powered people were different than regular ones.</p><p>It was like static sliding along his nerves. With this many, it made him feel itchy and it thrust him to a knife’s edge.</p><p>Matt pulled Jessica with him toward a far corner, in a vain attempt to get away.</p><p>“Is this our only option?” he asked through gritted teeth. Usually, the shelters weren’t so crowded.</p><p>“Unless you want to clear your own place,” Jess said. Something about her posture made Matt think she maybe wasn’t scowling at him this time, but her tone was harsh. “You <em>can</em> do that, I suppose. With your pseudo-sight and all that shit.”</p><p>Matt gritted his teeth again. Normally he could handle people not understanding, and normally Jess wasn’t such an asshole about this, but today he found patience out of his reach. And she reeked of blood that he’d now realized wasn’t hers.</p><p>“I need air. I’ll be back in before trouble comes,” he bit out.</p><p>Jess let him go, and he appreciated her for that.</p><p>The sound didn’t go away outside, so Matt reached out and made his way to the roof. Sometimes, being above noise made it more bearable. All he knew was that he could breathe and some of the strain eased.</p><p>After the collapse of everything, and after it was clear that people with powers took the fall for it, the streets had become a dangerous place for those interested in protecting them. They weren’t the Avengers, but they all banded together, found hideouts to shelter for a few weeks at a time and protect each other as they continued working, more carefully now.</p><p>It was only by accident that Matt was even here. God knew he knew how to hide his abilities.</p><p>But all of that death, the chaos, in the beginning had to be addressed. He couldn’t sit that out while people needed protection.</p><p>And with everyone’s tensions heightened, people had paid more attention to him, no matter what he’d tried to do to stop them. Someone was always awake and Matt couldn’t rely on shadows anymore. Not to mention how the city’s landscape had changed and how hard it had been for him to adjust.</p><p>He hadn’t been hard to track.</p><p>So here he was. A visible member of a group he’d always secretly been part of, a group on the outskirts of society.</p><p>Matt heard Jess coming before she announced herself with a heavy sigh.</p><p>“There were so many reasons to hide what I could do,” Matt told her when the wave of air left by her settling beside him had passed.</p><p>“You don’t have to explain that to me. I’ve had enough assholes swear at me and cross the street when they caught me bending metal with my bare hands,” she said. “Fuck, I used to wish I could hide it.” If it were normal times, Matt imagined she would have ended that sentence with a long drink.</p><p>But something loosened. That hostility toward powered people was something he’d never really been able to make Foggy understand, so he hadn’t tried. He’d focused on the guilt and what he did with his powers instead.</p><p>“Part of it is because I can’t explain. I didn’t even understand it until Stick.” Matt couldn’t tell what it was, but he got the impression he’d captured Jess’s attention. Maybe the way her breath seemed more direct, washing over his skin instead of drifting into the air. Or how he heard her posture change—shifting closer, but pulling back before their arms were close enough to touch.</p><p>“And my senses don’t exactly separate. They all combine to form an overall picture for me,” Matt continued explaining. Jess didn’t move to stop him. “But not a visual one, not exactly like a mental image. It isn’t pseudo-sight.”</p><p>Jess sighed. “I shouldn’t have said that.”</p><p>Matt let it go. He was too exhausted for grudges, and she meant it. “How’s Luke?” he asked.</p><p>“How’s Nelson?” she answered with a slightly faster heartbeat. But no signs of distress. Matt didn’t imagine she’d be this put together if Luke had been bad.</p><p>Matt swallowed. “I talked to him. He convinced me to visit him.”</p><p>“Well that’s stupid as shit.”</p><p>“Yeah.” Matt laughed because it was so stupid, but he couldn’t ignore the spark of warmth still attached to the idea. Or the idea that maybe he’d get more hugs. “But he’s persuasive, and he’s all alone in all of this. I should have thought of that sooner.”</p><p>Matt didn’t want to be with this group, but he also knew what it was like to be alone while the world ended. He’d only wish that on his enemies, and never on Foggy.</p><p>Jess hummed like she was giving him the point.</p><p>For some reason, Matt felt tempted to tell her all about their reunion. Even how Foggy yelled at him. But he pushed the urge aside.                                                                   </p><p> </p><p>“You look like shit,” Foggy’s tone wasn’t quite scolding, but Matt could hear a hint of reproach.</p><p>“Hello to you, too,” Matt replied with a smile. “You aren’t the only one who tells me that.” His throat ached from being grabbed and held in a tighter and tighter grip, and he could pinpoint where all of the bruises on his back would be from the concrete wall he’d been held and slammed against.</p><p>But the impression of it faded a little.</p><p>Foggy huffed. “And you don’t listen to any of us.”</p><p>“Either,” Matt corrected.</p><p>“Jessica Jones?” Matt nodded, and he heard a sound like Foggy did, too. “Should I ask <em>why</em> you look like shit or is that classified?”</p><p>Matt wanted to grin. There was something about being with Foggy that made him feel lighter. Conversation with him—when they weren’t mad at each other or keeping secrets—was so easy.</p><p>“I’m just tired. I have a lot of strain on my senses nowadays.” He didn’t mention the part about one of them not always working. “But it’s not too much,” he quickly added when he heard Foggy’s stilled breath and sensed the way his attention sharpened. “I promise I’m not going to fall off a roof.”</p><p>“Or into a manhole?” Foggy eased off a little.</p><p>Matt smiled. “Or into a manhole.”</p><p>Foggy nodded again and then he turned away and Matt heard footsteps. He still didn’t have a proper sense of the apartment, but he guessed it was the kitchen. Sound started echoing the way it did off of appliances and it was threaded through with the soft hum of working electricity.</p><p>“Do you want anything to drink? I’m going to insist on water anyway because I doubt you get anywhere near enough, but can I get anything else?” Foggy asked.</p><p>Matt felt another surge of warmth. “I wouldn’t turn down coffee.”</p><p>Foggy started filling the order and Matt followed him over, keeping a hand outstretched though he didn’t expect to run into anything. Instead, he skimmed his fingers over a smooth counter-top and followed it up the wall to a smooth, raised surface that felt like tile.</p><p>“My radar sense is a little off,” he said before he realized he was going to.</p><p>Water splashed against stainless steel and Foggy stiffened at the same time. “What does that mean?” His voice was as tight as his shoulders.</p><p>“It isn’t serious.” Foggy breathed in like he was going to put it around words and Matt hurried to interrupt. “I promise. I’m not going to run into anything. I haven’t. The world is just a little blurry, off-center. Kind of like when I’m drunk. And it isn’t all the time. Right now, it’s fine. You’re a foot away from your fridge, which is to your left, in the corner, and you opened the cupboard over the sink and were reaching for that disgusting canister coffee I can’t believe you’re giving me.”</p><p>Amazingly, that made Foggy relax.</p><p>“It’s a weird thing to get used to. I just—I tried explaining it to Jess and she didn’t really get it.” Matt had no idea why he was telling Foggy, but the words had left his mouth. More followed.</p><p>“That was one of the reasons I always hid my senses.”</p><p>“I know, Matty.” Foggy’s voice. Soft, like Matt had been making expressions to match his words. And then Foggy pressed a cold glass into Matt’s hand. “It’s about three-fourths full,” he added.</p><p>“And now, with the other powered people, everyone knows.” Matt bit his lip and frowned. His thoughts were a shape in front of him, and he was working his way around it. He blamed his fatigue for why he was doing it out loud. “I hate it when people find out I’m blind.”</p><p>Some of his own tension sloughed off his shoulders to say it.</p><p>“You mean now?”</p><p>Matt nodded, worrying that bottom lip. People either denied it outright or demanded to know how it all worked and Matt was tired of being a curiosity.</p><p>“People don’t get it. They ask how I do things, which I understand, and then they tell me that it’s like I’m not even blind. Which is—” Matt couldn’t find words to describe it.</p><p>“So I do everything I can to hide one or the other. With the radar sense being off-balance, it’s a little easier that way.” Matt still didn’t understand why he was saying this out loud. It dug into his skin when people acted like his enhanced senses could replace sight. As if they helped with reading written text or knowing colors.</p><p>But he’d dealt with that before. There was no reason to talk about it.</p><p>Foggy made a strangled, outraged noise and Matt’s lips tipped up.</p><p>“Please tell me you at least punch them,” Foggy said. Matt blinked and smiled wider around a half-laugh.</p><p>“I don’t remember you being so bloodthirsty.”</p><p>Heat shot up Foggy’s neck, but he didn’t back away. “I didn’t use to be. All of this changed things. Being scared all the time sort of makes me want to, I don’t know, fight back when I can? Besides, it’s you. I’ll never not hate people for making you feel bad about being blind.”</p><p>Jess scared off the people who outright bothered him, but since his dad, Matt hadn’t had anyone in his corner the way Foggy was.</p><p>His big mouth was about to say something else, but the coffee pot beeped and rescued him from the temptation. Not that it stopped the warm thoughts or the soft smile he aimed at Foggy’s back.</p>
<hr/><p>Snow. It took Matt a minute or so, but he was sensing the first snow of the year.</p><p>For all that it fucked with his senses, Matt sort of liked snow. The brush of the flakes felt nice against his skin and the air felt fresher with it coming down.</p><p>The cool water sinking into his bruises and scrapes wasn’t bad either.</p><p>But navigating, finding anything other than buildings now was nearly impossible with his already-malfunctioning radar. At least he didn’t have anything to interfere with his others.</p><p>Matt would be more annoyed if the streets hadn't gotten quiet to the point that he'd begun wondering if they'd all become safer.</p><p>It was a stupid thing to even consider. All the powered people still worked, saved people and stopped the worst of the crime—violence and direct theft and the like—and Matt still picked up on the threads of larger movements and pieced them together until they were too big to safely ignore.</p><p>Nothing was really safer.</p><p>Everyone got tired of the instability, and it pushed some farther than others. When those people decided it was time to establish themselves as the new point of authority, he was there. Sometimes with back-up, though the Devil seemed to still have enough of an effect.</p><p>Fight, flight or freeze always worked in his favor, no matter how big his opponent.</p><p>Every takeover turned violent, and they always created more chaos than they stopped. It was probably the biggest lesson he'd learned since putting on the mask. And the supporting evidence was everywhere.</p><p>Matt felt his lack of sleep like an omnipresent fog. But it didn't stop him.</p><p>The turn in the weather had driven most people inside, and Matt at least felt he could catch his breath when he needed to. He also had more opportunities to visit Foggy, which he could never pass up.</p><p>Foggy hadn't stopped welcoming him with a bright voice. A few weeks had passed and they hadn't run out of things to say. They hadn't fought. Instead, they talked and joked and Matt sank into warm familiarity and felt lighter than he had since everything had changed.</p><p>And Matt was more confident now that his best friend was secure.</p><p>Satisfied with tonight’s bare-bones scouting, Matt climbed to his feet. He wished his next stop was a bed, but he would take a thin blanket over cold concrete if it put him horizontal. Sleep might not come, but he could meditate at least. Take the edge off.</p><p>As he navigated rooftops, a snatch of sound played across his ears. Without thinking, Matt turned his face toward it. It wasn’t loud, but unusual, just a large collection of voices. Or, he thought it was.</p><p>The sound echoed through the cold night and empty space, bouncing off of buildings. The voices were light, so it likely wasn’t a mob. Trying to focus too hard sent a flash of pain through Matt’s head.</p><p>Sleep. Or meditation. Anything to turn his brain off. But he shouldn’t pass up the chance to get a little closer.</p><p>The snow hadn’t stopped, and keeping his boots from slipping as he followed the group led to pain slicing through the front and sides of his skull. By the end, his focus was at the edge of his fingertips. But he was closer to this group, at least ten people strong. He could make out the shape of it.</p><p>And then intense heat and the smell of burning—chemicals and fabric and drywall—filled the air. Shouts followed a heartbeat later. All of it just down the street.   </p><p>Matt forgot what he’d been doing.</p><p>All that mattered was the newest emergency.</p><p>Which meant Matt briefly forgot about the snow, too, until it meant taking twice as long to make the trip. Disoriented and in screaming pain when he stopped across the “street.” By then, he was too late to stop the collapse. Probably, he never could have.</p><p>Matt had learned to get used to the unique sensation. Like a piece of the world crumbling apart in such a chaos of sound that it became noiseless. The ripples shuddered against his skin and under his feet so he could feel the collapse rumble through his bones.</p><p>All the while, the fire ate the building and Matt tried to think of a way inside, a way to get to the people trapped.</p><p>But he was too close, and the disaster drowned his senses so he couldn’t get out of the moment.</p><p>In the end, the world slipped away from him for a while.</p><p>When Matt could tune back in, the only sound left was shifting bricks, the last groans of stressed steel and the whipping sound of flames.</p><p>His face was wet and his throat hurt. And he was alone with another new graveyard. Matt’s gasp sounded like a gunshot. Numb, he stumbled closer to the wreck, reaching out desperately.</p><p>He heard a few slow heartbeats, smelled blood and dust, and dove in. Navigating was almost impossible, but Matt managed to slowly pick his way to one and then another. And then a flash of heat fell in front of him and one of those heartbeats let out a faint, pained gasp.</p><p>Deeper inside, one, two, three heartbeats slowed to stops.</p><p>Distant to his senses, there was the sharp sensation of a closer fire. Matt thought it might be on his clothes, but he was moving too quickly to examine it.</p><p>The fresh air felt even colder now, and the snow had picked up. Matt’s throat hurt even more and he realized the shirt over his shoulder blade was burning. One of the people he’d rescued—stronger heartbeat, less pained movements—pushed a handful of snow over the spot.</p><p>Quickly and numbly, Matt checked them over and he escorted them to where one of them lived. They wanted to stay together.</p><p>When the door closed and he heard the locks click and slide into place, Matt found himself turning east. He had the vague idea that following this street would take him to Foggy’s.</p><p>Matt imagined the small apartment that smelled like coffee and Foggy’s softly scented shower products. It would be warm, and Foggy would probably insist on draping a blanket over him. Feeding him. He’d force water on him at the very least.</p><p>But then Matt remembered the echoes of screaming, wrapped in the hungry sound of fire, and realized he hadn’t heard them the first time. His brain processed and played them for him now. And more feelings beyond pain and exhaustion crept in.</p><p>Matt wanted Foggy, but he couldn’t go there. Not like this. Surely he was beyond looking like shit, and Foggy didn’t deserve the worry it would cause.</p><p>Jess was overnighting in Harlem, and Matt didn’t have the energy or desire to haul his ass across the island.</p><p>He could pick himself up. Matt had been doing it all his life.</p><p>Drained and drawn out, Matt found an empty office building nearby. Scanning it for threats took the last shreds of his strength, but he didn’t sense anything. So he trudged inside, stumbled into a suite and sank down onto a surprisingly lush carpet.</p><p>He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes against memories of the last hellish hour. Outside, the wind howled, throwing snowflakes against the windows here on the second floor. Otherwise, his hideout was blessedly quiet and exactly what he needed.</p><p>Matt truly processed best in the silence.</p><p>And that was when an old-but-refreshed terror rose to wrap around his heart, his lungs, his throat.</p><p>No matter how many times he heard the sound of buildings falling down, Matt couldn’t forget what it was like to be inside an avalanche like that. And tonight was the closest he’d physically been since then.</p><p>He shook his head violently to banish the thoughts, and then shifted into a more comfortable position.</p><p>Luckily, his exhaustion took hold and dragged him down before too long.              </p><p> </p><p>Some time later, Matt cracked his eyes open and concentrated through aches and pains he didn’t remember earning. It wasn’t quite enough to pierce the brain fog.</p><p>But he did remember a fire, screams, trapped, desperate people he could have saved. Except he couldn’t. Because this parade of accidents and deaths would never end.</p><p>He put his head back down and closed his eyes again.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. The Light</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Matt learns what it takes to survive and resists that lesson until he can't</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Matt felt…rested. And it was so novel he could almost mistake it for being the same as well-rested. Shreds of fatigue still drifted through his thoughts and stuck in the corners of his brain, but he could think.</p><p>And he was awake, so he dragged himself into a sitting position and considered what his next step was.</p><p>For one thing, Matt hadn’t healed nearly as much as he’d wished. Every breath scraped out of his throat, and his shoulder throbbed in the intense-but-shallow way he associated with burns. All of his skin was more sensitive than usual.</p><p>Matt dragged himself to his feet. He’d already rested more than usual. When he was upright, Matt relaxed his filters—easier after actual sleep—and he could hear things that needed to be done.</p><p>The snow had stopped falling and the ground wasn’t cold enough for it to have done more than collect. Matt rolled his shoulders, winced against the sting of the burns and set that as the base level for what he’d have to ignore.</p><p>The nearest panicked heartbeat picked up again, joining the noise of taunts and the shuffle of heavy bodies moving around to crowd around the heartbeat. Matt took another breath—ignored his sore throat—and went to investigate, already burrowing into his Daredevil mindset.</p><p>One of the things Matt hated most about this brave new world was the inability to rely on shadows. Ruins just didn’t make for consistent shade. Matt could tell where buildings were, but from the street he had no idea how intact or stable they were.</p><p>So he went in ready to swing.</p><p>Luckily, the wannabe muggers weren’t. Nor did they react quickly.</p><p>Matt blocked a knife swipe, tossed another person over his back and landed a few elbow strikes before the group decided he wasn’t worth it. The panicked heartbeat took its—<em>her</em> he realized—first chance to escape. Matt breathed hard as everyone left, hurting from the burns but disappointed.</p><p>He didn’t have to be for long. A shriek, the distant sound of yelling, and an argument that sounded on the verge of violence all rang in his ears, along with everything else in the city. It was almost enough to get lost in.</p><p>And that was his mistake.</p><p>The first blow came out of the blue—only because he hadn’t paid enough attention to sense it. It fell across his shoulders from behind, throwing him into the wall in front of him.</p><p>Matt came back faster. He spun, and with a vague idea where his attacker was, struck out. Following the momentum, he dropped to a crouch and dodge another attack and popped up with another punch ready. And that was when the group descended.</p><p>He took a kick to the knees and another slam into the wall. Another foot landed in his ribs and he twisted his ankle trying to fall gracefully. Matt’s burned skin screamed and his prolonged lack of sleep clawed at him, delaying his reaction time just enough to make the fight feel like struggling uphill in a stiff wind.</p><p>Still, Matt struggled. Determined to last until it was too much.</p><p>He lost track of how many people were attacking, but he knew for a fact that he’d dropped three. So it was another group, like the one he thought he’d heard last night.</p><p>That memory drifted back into his head slowly, and Matt tried harder to count distinct bodies. Group attacks were never good, even when he was in top condition, and this one had him on the ropes and cornered where the panicked heartbeat had been.</p><p>Matt shook his head, vaguely aware of flying drops of blood, and reset his senses toward finding a way out. He found the gap between buildings first. Then he made his opening in the ambush, vaulting over someone’s back and using that momentum to drive someone else to the ground.</p><p>Matt turned onto the street, ducked into another narrow space and managed to get a good enough sense of it to climb up and move among the buildings from several feet in the air.</p><p>Eventually, he had to stop. The pain was too much, radiating out from the center of every injury he’d already had. The new ones sunk in, too. Matt panted with one palm pressed to the stone wall beside him. He tried reaching for his inner calm, but his body wouldn’t cooperate.</p><p>“You fucking asshole.”</p><p>Matt startled harder than he wanted to admit. “Hello to you too, Jessica,” he replied.</p><p>Before he could say anything else, she grabbed his arm, muttering threatening things about stupid loners. Matt went willingly. Getting away wouldn’t be worth the effort and there was a purpose in her stride that told him he wouldn’t be away for long.</p><p>So he let her drag him around buildings and ruins of buildings and other structures that had once made up the landscape of New York. He could feel more chill in the air, the change just faint enough to be explained by cloud cover.</p><p>As they walked, his pain faded back to a place where he could ignore it. Matt had almost relaxed by the time Jess stopped and pushed him ahead of her. Two men stood waiting, both familiar. Foggy seemed way more distressed than Luke—rapid heartbeat, sweating, a level of tension running through his body that hadn’t been there in weeks—and fidgeted like he was struggling with which words to let out first.</p><p>Part of Matt couldn’t wait to find out. But in the distance, he heard the cries he wasn’t answering.</p><p>“Hi,” he said to hopefully get it all started. Behind him, Jess shifted and she stood like she wanted to yell at him. Matt sighed, irritation prickling in his nerves. “I’m a little busy, so if you could get to the point…”</p><p>“What happened to you?” Luke’s steady voice was light, calm, curious. A direct counterpoint to the other two. “Jess said you disappeared for two days.”</p><p>“Is that why she brought you?” Matt asked. He heard shifting fabric and felt a disturbance of air and guessed at a shrug.</p><p>“Part of the reason. So what happened?”</p><p>Matt didn’t sigh, and a small part of him was delighted that he still had that much self-control. It probably helped that Luke was asking the question. “I got too close to an incident last night and decided to crash somewhere out of the way.”</p><p>“Incident? Is that why you look…?” Foggy’s voice trailed off, tightening as he talked.</p><p>“Like shit?” Matt guessed.</p><p>“Exhausted. Run down. Like you need a coma and a shower to get better.”</p><p>“You’re also covered in dirt and ash,” Jess said. “Your face is red, and don’t think I didn’t notice you wince when I grabbed you. So I know you’re hurt.”</p><p>“It’s not that bad,” he lied.</p><p>Foggy shook his head, his hair swishing. He seemed steadier now with some of the tension gone. Matt relaxed too.</p><p>“I’m not even going to be mad about that lie,” Foggy said. “I’m just glad you’re not dead. And that you’re here.”</p><p>Matt smiled because he could hear the bright tone of that gladness. The strained atmosphere hanging over the four of them had lightened. Then Matt fully processed that Foggy was here too and what that meant.</p><p>“What are you doing here?” he asked, and the nervous thump of Foggy’s heart told him that he’d hoped Matt wouldn’t ask. But it had to happen eventually.</p><p>“I’m not locked in my apartment, Matt. I do leave sometimes.” He sounded uncomfortable, his words coming out a little thicker and with less of a glow. Matt narrowed his eyes at it all.</p><p>“I know. What are you doing <em>here</em>, Foggy?” Here, with two easily identifiable powered people and one Luke Cage who was only a little less recognizable in this part of the city. Anyone who got close would be able to tell what he was.</p><p>On the tail end of that thought, Matt pushed past the hazy edges of his consciousness to listen for any movement around their perimeter. He should have done it as soon as he’d realized Foggy was there. The radar didn’t ping against anything that concerned him, jumbled though it was.</p><p>The air around Foggy shifted and Matt’s attention snapped back to him. “There isn’t anyone nearby, if you were curious,” he told the group. “Which is a good thing because there are groups looking for people like me, Jess and Luke.”</p><p>“I’m here because I was worried,” Foggy said through his teeth. “Jess told me she hadn’t seen you and she came to me to see if I knew anything. Then I went with her. Christ, Matt, you disappeared! And the last time anyone saw you was before the snowstorm. We were worried.” Foggy’s voice didn’t fray like Matt had expected.</p><p>He felt something cold wash over him before Foggy said the words. A bolt of pure fear.</p><p>“I want to come with you.”</p><p>The cold had frozen Matt’s words, but the instant sense of ‘no’ was bright and hot.</p><p>“It’s not safe yet. Did you not hear about the target you’d be painting on your back? No.” Not only that but Matt didn’t live anything resembling a stable life. He couldn’t bring Foggy into the mix. It was better to keep him separate. Safe. Until things died down.  </p><p>“It’s not like I’m safe at my apartment. Fewer threats maybe, but that’s not the same.” Fire burned through Foggy’s words, too. “Everywhere is dangerous.”</p><p>Matt took a step back. The world was spinning. His radar pinged off Luke’s comforting bulk, Jessica’s steel core and the solid wall of determination that was Foggy. They all stared at him, arranged in a half-circle. Matt couldn’t hear any of them.</p><p>But he could hear falling masonry, shouting, arguing, threats. Matt could hear people desperate for rescue, for relief, for any kind of help. For once, he clearly felt the too-openness of the space they were in. And Matt knew he couldn’t explain it. </p><p>He never could.</p><p>“My answer is no.” Then he turned, ignored the strike of a sudden headache, and turned back into the cold wind to do his fucking job.</p><p> </p><p>Matt lost track of time. He went from one disaster to another, all senses trained on the problems that needed solving and on prioritizing them.</p><p>But it had to have been a few days. Matt could remember the regular dips in temperature, and the way it rose again.</p><p>And he did his job. He broke up fights, saved people from attack, helped people to shelter. All of it fueled his purpose. Matt was making the city safer.</p><p>The cold kept sinking in, though. It dragged on his limbs, his neck, his shoulders. The haze in his brain only thickened. And his body throbbed and ached.</p><p>Matt’s legs gave out and he slumped against something metal. The chill stung his skin.</p><p>“Fuck.”</p><p>He was so tired and the world felt so empty.</p><p> </p><p>Matt heard a <em>snick</em>, felt the bite of thin metal on his wrist and came awake swinging. He didn’t remember falling asleep, but that wasn’t important.</p><p>The other handcuff hadn’t been fastened, so it swung loose, jangling wildly as he lunged toward his attacker.</p><p>He dodged the swipe of an arm. Then he dropped on his front foot to roll to the side, and Matt turned just enough to sweep his leg out.</p><p>It caught the other person’s shin and he heard a muffled grunt as they stumbled. He took advantage to pull them to the floor. It wasn’t his favorite place for a fight, but Matt wasn’t going to be picky about it.</p><p>Then the person cursed, and recognition poked through the mindless adrenaline.</p><p>“Jess?” he rasped. “What the hell?”</p><p>“Jesus Christ, Murdock,” she grumbled at him, using her elbows to push herself off the floor.</p><p>“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded again. “What is this?” he shook the handcuffs.</p><p>“It’s not like you were going to come with me any other way.”</p><p>And Matt didn’t have to ask what her plan had been. “And why am I coming with you?”</p><p>Leather rubbed and shifted and resettled as Jess audibly crossed her arms. “Because you’re being an idiot. But we can have that conversation here if you want.” The sound of her voice wasn’t impressed with the hiding spot he’d found, but the space was dry and isolated and enclosed so she could take her judgment elsewhere.</p><p>Matt crossed his arms in return, the handcuff jangling again. He settled back against the wall and tried to level his face at her.</p><p>“Please. Tell me how I’m being an idiot.”</p><p>“Gladly,” she growled. “First off, your dramatic storming out only upset him. And you know he’s not wrong. If we stopped going to the Super HQ and found our own places he’d only be marginally less safe than he is now living alone.”</p><p>Before Matt could interject, Jess continued over him.</p><p>“Second, you’re in love with him. So I don’t know why the hell you’re doing this because I’m pretty sure you know it’s upsetting him. And you're clearly no better.”</p><p>Matt lost his words. He forgot every counter-argument he wanted to make about Foggy’s safety, and he fixated on Jess’s last sentence.</p><p>In love with Foggy?</p><p>“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he protested. He heard Jess’s scoff. “No. I can’t be—can’t feel that way. It’s nothing like Elektra. Or even Karen.” His chest tightened at both thoughts. Matt hadn’t talked about either of them since one died and the other…disappeared right in front of him.</p><p>Jess’s sigh was so long it rippled through the air. Matt could imagine the frown that accompanied sounds like that. Her hair shifted when she said, “God, you’re going to make me say it.” And the words drifted toward the ceiling.</p><p>“You don’t have to.” Matt didn’t know why he was being defensive, but he got the sense that this conversation was going to be uncomfortable, and he wouldn’t get away with jumping through a window.</p><p>“I don’t know if you’re being stupid on purpose, but it doesn’t have to feel the same. Foggy is a different person and you two live in each other’s pockets even when you aren’t talking. It’s a different relationship.”</p><p>Her voice held the idea of an eyeroll, but then the edges rounded. “You’re different when you’re around him or when you’ve been around him. You relax. You stop being the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen or whatever. You trust him. You feel safe with him.”</p><p>Matt opened his mouth, couldn’t think of what to say and closed it. Pieces of the last few months, of all the years he’d known Foggy, fell into a different shape in his head. With a few major exceptions, Foggy had always meant safety and comfort for him. Even when they were angry at each other, they had each other’s backs against external threats.</p><p>Then there was the warmth. The calm. The feeling that, when he was with Foggy, Matt had something blocking out the cold.</p><p>She wasn’t wrong.</p><p><em>She wasn’t wrong.</em> He opened his mouth again—</p><p>“Besides, I have two working eyes,” Jess added, her voice back to normal. Shifting closer to smug.</p><p>“Isn’t that just more reason to protect him?” It wasn’t really a question. Matt cleared his throat to get rid of the hoarseness. He needed to put away the revelation, or push it somewhere other than the center of his mind.</p><p>Jess sighed again. “It’s like you missed the part when I told you that he’s upset. And he hasn’t gone back to his apartment. He’s not giving up on this, Matt.”</p><p>Matt gritted his teeth at the same time he wanted to laugh. That was Foggy. He was probably building an argument for the next time he saw Matt. And he was probably right, or he’d make Matt think so in the moment.</p><p>Matt had always been able to resist that clever charm, but he didn’t think he still had it in him. Not after everything that had changed.</p><p>“I can’t let him get hurt, Jess. I can’t do that.”</p><p>Jess’s hair moved over her shoulders again. Back and forth. “I get it. Trust me. But he’ll be around three assholes with superpowers. And he’s not stupid.”</p><p>Matt remembered her suggestion about the two of them leaving the rest of the group. And he realized that apparently Luke would be staying around. A little spot of happiness bloomed in his chest. On its heels was the sweet, familiar pang of longing.</p><p>“Can’t it wait?” Matt asked. He couldn’t ignore everything he’d been doing the past couple of days. People were agitating, getting restless. Uncertainty hung over everything.</p><p>“Just until it’s safer and we figure out why people are gathering in bigger groups now? Why they’re cornering powered people? When it’s not constant chaos anymore,” he added.</p><p>Jess went quiet. Still. And Matt knew she was staring at him, probably reading him.</p><p>“You think that’s going to happen?” It would have been so easy for her to sound judgmental or mocking, but she didn’t.</p><p>No, she sounded serious. A little disbelieving.</p><p>Matt didn’t answer. He didn’t think it was meant as a question anyway. He burned to pretend like he thought she meant his theories about people hunting supers, but he couldn’t do that either.</p><p>“Shit.” There was a rough scrape of skin on skin, and her breathing was muffled for a moment. “You can’t do that. This bullshit?” air rippled over his skin from head-height, and he heard her arm moving, “isn’t going to go away any time soon. You need to start living before that.”  </p><p>Matt frowned, embraced the familiar creep of anger. “This is my life, Jess. And it’s important. I’m doing important work. I can’t just sit out because it upsets you and Foggy. He should know that.”</p><p>Then Jess scoffed like he’d been expecting her to since this conversation started. “Living is more than beating up dumbasses who aren’t ever going to stop coming. Matt, this is bigger than you. The world’s safety isn’t just your responsibility. And it’s never going to really happen. So you can’t wait to let yourself be happy. Especially when the chance is right in front of you.”</p><p>Emotion crackled through Jess’s voice in a way he’d never heard from her. Sharp worry and softer concern. He’d heard something similar when he’d overheard her talking to Trish Walker, but never outside of that.</p><p>It struck him speechless and he turned toward the wall, balling his hands into fists. The room felt closer and the combination of emotions rose over his head.</p><p>“You being miserable and collapsing isn’t going to end all of this either,” Jess finally said. Her voice was low and solid. “Don’t wait too long, Murdock.”  </p><p>Matt didn’t say anything. So she left.</p><p> </p><p>Another day or two passed, packed full of disaster after crisis after emergency. Matt soldiered on, but he couldn’t stop thinking about how empty it felt and what it might be like to be warm. </p><p> </p><p>Foggy was pacing again. Matt heard the swish and shuffle and the soft echoes of his footsteps.</p><p>Every part of him wanted to slip away except the one that heard Foggy rubbing his hands together the way he always did when he worried.</p><p>Matt eased the filters on his hearing and tipped his face into the breeze. Immediately, the sound of people in trouble swarmed to him, and he pulled his legs up to hist chest and wrapped his arms around while he parsed through each small crisis.</p><p>He could hear other powered people handling those, too.</p><p>In the immediate aftermath of everything collapsing, Matt had been amazed by how many people stepped up to help. Adults, teenagers, college students, tourists, artists, office workers, small business owners. It felt like everyone came out to clean up, to put out fires, to secure dangerous debris. Anything to handle the last-minute results of sudden chaos.</p><p>Some had gradually pulled back, dealing with their own problems or bailing on the workload, but so many were still out there.</p><p>And so many had small powers of their own. None on the level to be considered by the Avengers, but enough to be useful.</p><p>It was a good thing too. Matt heard three, four new conflicts answered and he set his chin on his knees. People still gathered in groups, but nothing sounded remotely like it needed his attention.</p><p>A low, rumbling voice passed his ears and he heard Foggy’s dry laugh answer it.</p><p>The apartment was new; a big, relatively open place Jess and Luke had cleared. It had working electricity and running water, too. Matt could tell the heat was broken by the way it rattled slowly through the vents, but the insulation was decent judging by the way the walls muffled sound.</p><p>There was no mistaking Luke’s warm presence. Matt already knew that Jess was away; across the neighborhood staking out a building she was pretty sure held a missing person she’d been tracking.</p><p>He zeroed in on Foggy’s heartbeat and let the familiarity sink into him to drown everything else out. Matt had never found him that all-consuming before. Engaging, distracting, but never to the point of being able to block out the wider world like he did nowadays.</p><p>Could Matt handle never hearing it again?</p><p>He was in love with Foggy. The truth kept beating louder and louder.</p><p>The other day Jess had told him not to wait too long, and Matt still wasn’t sure how to gauge that. But he currently had undeniable evidence that Foggy was done waiting alone in an apartment.</p><p>Foggy could picture something beyond screaming and pain and danger. The idea of him doing it without Matt made his skin itch like it was covered in burlap.</p><p>Inside the apartment, Luke moved closer to where Matt had decided the door must be. He listened until it closed again and Foggy resumed the pacing. This time, he sounded even more anxious.</p><p>Matt leveraged his weight off the rooftop and crossed something like a street to get to the apartment. He tapped on the window before he could think about it for longer than two seconds.</p><p>Foggy froze and everything Matt could possibly sense threw off <em>alarm</em>. He winced inwardly even as Foggy marched across the room and opened the window.</p><p>“What the hell, Matt?” he demanded. But Matt could hear how his heart thumped a different rhythm and the way his muscles relaxed into his most comfortable posture. Foggy wasn’t bothered to see him. The opposite. “Actually, no, it’s good you’re here because my only idea was to track you down since Jon—Jessica said she wouldn’t do it.”</p><p>Matt smirked and Foggy pulled him inside. Then the rest of what Foggy had said sunk in, just as his friend stepped away, turned back around and squared his shoulders, readying that argument he’d definitely prepared.</p><p>“When we lost Karen and Marci and…my family,” he inhaled sharply, blinked rapidly, and all of Matt’s thoughts fell out of his head. They’d never talked about the people they’d lost.</p><p>Sometimes Matt had nightmares about that shushing, fizzing sound and the sensation that one moment something was on his radar, and the next it was gone, leaving a hole. He still couldn’t describe what had happened, and in the direct aftermath, Foggy had refused to talk about it. Every time it was even suggested, his throat tightened, his heart beat harder and his breath stopped.</p><p>Jess had confirmed that people had turned into dust and drifted away, disappearing. But that was all she’d ever said about it. So Matt still had a hard time conceptualizing the event that changed all of their lives.</p><p>Eventually, he’d decided to fall back on his old ideas of the Rapture, subtracting the hand of God from the picture.</p><p>“You were there, right after. And you kept me sane, helped me keep it together. But you didn’t let me do the same thing,” Foggy said, cutting through those memories. “But these past few weeks I felt like I was doing…<em>something</em>. Jess told me I did, anyway. And I want to keep doing that. You look like shit, Matt. I can tell you’ve barely been sleeping or eating.”</p><p>Matt opened his mouth to protest. Not that it wasn’t true. He just felt strangely exposed, and he needed to put something in front of that.</p><p>But Foggy kept talking, and a moment later Matt realized his friend had started pacing again.</p><p>“You need some human contact, and I can’t handle the idea of you disappearing again,” Foggy said. “It’s way too easy for you to do that when we aren’t together. I don’t know if you want me, but I want to be with you. I want to help, and I want <em>you</em>, Matt. Not just to pull you away from the edge, but because it’s you, and you’ve been the brightest spot in this nightmare.”</p><p>“Foggy—” Overwhelmed, everything Matt wanted to say got backed up in his throat—what he wanted, how he felt, how the world shifted and flickered and crumbled every day and he could sense all of it. How he’d finally accepted it shouldn’t be a barrier between him and his friends.</p><p>The urge to cover himself went away.</p><p>“I know what you’re going to say,” Foggy replied. And Matt would love to know what it was.</p><p>“I don’t care about the world falling down every day. It sounds stupid, but life is short. And it sucks right now. But you make it suck less, and you distract me from the worst. So fuck it. Let’s be happy. Let’s be together. The world isn’t perfect, and it never will be, but we can still be happy. Let me come with you.”</p><p>A tiny bubble of hope forced its way into Matt’s soul, and his determination from before trickled back in. “I love you. Don’t leave.”</p><p>Ideally, his declaration would have been a speech and he would have successfully laid out all of his thoughts about it, including how they’d changed, but those five words were the crux of it.</p><p>Foggy’s breath changed. Maybe around a smile. Before he could say anything, Matt did think of a way to continue.</p><p>“I mean it. The danger won’t end, but I-I’m not the only one who’s handling it. And I can keep you safe.” Matt was sure of that. He’d run it through his head over and over since Jess had left him, and he’d decided it was the truth. “I don’t want you to move on without me.”</p><p>“What?” Foggy sounded more offended than surprised, but only by a little. “Why the hell would I move on without you?”</p><p>Matt must have clearly not had a good answer to that question, and Foggy made a low noise in his throat. “Matty.” He came closer and planted his hands on Matt’s shoulders. “I’m not going to leave you.”</p><p>He paused and his heartbeat filled the brief silence, pounding. “I love you, too. And before you’re tempted to overthink that, yes, like this.”</p><p>Then, with little more warning, Foggy kissed him. Soft and brief. Not asking for anything more. He stepped away after a few seconds, though he didn’t go far.</p><p>Matt’s next breath out was a bit unsteady. “That’s how I mean it, too,” he said quietly. This time Foggy was close enough that Matt could tell he was smiling.</p><p>He lifted a hand up to Foggy’s hair and trailed his fingers through the shoulder-length strands. For a while, Foggy had been adamant about cutting it short-ish when he had to. Matt wondered when he’d stopped.</p><p>And, he realized, he might have a chance to find out. If Matt stayed, he’d be around for every change.</p><p>The thought made him excited in a bright, glowing way that was completely different from when he heard a potential fight to start.</p><p>He kissed Foggy again, but he made it deeper, put his tongue into it, and Foggy sighed into his mouth. Matt’s hands drifted over to his face, and Foggy’s slid from his shoulders to hold his waist, firm but not restraining.</p><p>It felt like the best decision he’d made in weeks.</p><p>And Matt hadn’t known he was so interested in exploring Foggy’s mouth, or how much he’d love the soft, happy sounds Foggy made. But the kiss lasted for a long time and they’d somehow migrated away from the window and closer to the couch.</p><p>With a quick smile and another zing of happy excitement, Matt shifted his weight and positioned his body so Foggy’s next step backward tipped him onto the cushions. Naturally, gravity carried Matt right behind.</p><p>“Oof,” Foggy grunted. Matt just smiled. But the kissing didn’t start up again. With his arms still secure around Matt’s back, Foggy leaned away and made a contemplative hum.</p><p>“So I don’t know if you want to stick around here with Luke and Jess. I’d recommend it, but I just want to be where you are, assuming that you are, in fact, taking me with you.”</p><p>Matt thought about it, but he didn’t take too long. Jess and Luke made up the rest of the new picture taking shape in his head, and after months of Jess being something of a safe space, he didn’t like the idea of leaving her behind either.</p><p>“Yes, but I suppose we could stick around here for a while,” Matt said. In response, Foggy sat up a bit and kissed his cheek.</p><p>Now that he was inside and world directly outside stayed quiet, Matt could sort of sense how the space sprawled. The building itself was mostly abandoned, with the handful of other inhabitants moving around quietly.</p><p>“I still don’t like the idea of exposing you to more danger,” Matt told Foggy. “Even if we manage to hide you, you’re going to be closer to all of it. I know you did a good job of staying away at your old apartment.”</p><p>Foggy sighed and a moment later Matt felt the soft pads of his fingers tracing his jaw, his eyebrows. “I know, and I need you to trust that I’ve thought of that and I’ve accepted it, knowing what it means. I also need you to know that I trust you.” He shifted up again to kiss Matt’s temple. “And I’m not stupid.”</p><p>Matt laughed helplessly, and he didn’t feel the urge to argue. He could do that. </p><p>Instead, he shifted to the side and put his head down on Foggy’s chest and let the feeling of being warm sink into his body. It still wasn’t a bed, but Matt drifted off easily.</p><p> </p><p>Some time later, Matt woke up tense and he didn’t know why until the front door crashed open.</p><p>“Ha, you owe me Jess,” Luke said from the doorway. He sounded happy.</p><p>Jess ignored him in favor of Matt. Because of course she knew he was awake before he lifted his head. “God of course you just crawled in through the window,” she said, judging before she crossed the room to close it.</p><p>“Uh.” Matt was still a little too warm, a little too comfortable to remember how words worked together. Under him, Foggy snorted.</p><p>“Leave him alone guys, I made him talk about feelings.”</p><p>“I can see that,” Jess’s voice was drier. “At least you’re both still wearing clothes.”</p><p>Matt had never felt the heat of Foggy’s blush so close, and he was intrigued to learn that it started at his chest, not his neck like Matt had always thought.</p><p>“I haven’t been assigned a room,” Matt pointed out. “You’re going to need a fourth roommate for an apartment this big.”</p><p>“You’ll have to shack up with Nelson,” Luke said. “Only two of three bedrooms have anything in them.”</p><p>Matt was delighted to know he was interpreting the combination of not-Foggy scents—leather and smoke mixed with cotton and hard soap—correctly. “If that’s the burden I must bear,” he replied, leaning his shoulder into Foggy’s.</p><p>“Then welcome home, Matty,” Foggy told him with a kiss.</p>
<hr/><p>Matt stood on the edge of a building, carefully reading the surrounding neighborhood. He could feel blood leaking from his temple and his ribs ached, but he’d had worse. More concerning was the haze in his thoughts and the way the edges of his senses slipped away from him.</p><p>Long minutes passed and eventually Matt had to admit that he didn’t sense anything that wasn’t being addressed. Though there was a fight or two that could maybe use an extra hand…</p><p>Matt sank down on the concrete beneath his feet instead, just for a moment, and turned his mind away from the horror of the past few days.</p><p>Some of the Avengers had been back in the city, briefly. Jess had told him they had a name for what happened almost a year ago. The Snap.</p><p>Though the Avengers were keeping the details to themselves.</p><p>Jess’s heart had started racing and Matt had sensed rising adrenaline and dopamine when he jokingly suggested tracking down those details.</p><p>But the news had incited a new wave of riots and violence and at some point, traffickers had the space to set up shop.</p><p>Once again, the powered people of the city rose up to counter the worst of it. Even better prepared this time with all of the experience. But it was still draining on the mind and body.</p><p>Matt shook his head, and got back to his feet. Dwelling wasn’t going to help. It would only pull him into another fight, and another until the exhaustion got the best of him.</p><p>“It’s no use carrying the weight of the world if you can’t stay on your feet.” It was old advice Sister Maggie had told him before she’d disappeared with the others. And she had a point.</p><p>So Matt did one last cursory scan for anything major and headed the only place he wanted to be after hours of brutal work had stretched him out.</p><p>Foggy greeted him at the window, his worry fading as Matt’s feet touched the floor inside.</p><p>“Hi honey, welcome home.” Foggy’s voice was pitched in a half-pretend tone, but it didn’t stop Matt from privately loving it.</p><p>“Hello darling.” Matt also loved the way those words rolled off his tongue.</p><p>Heat seared over Foggy’s cheeks and up to his ears, and Matt enjoyed that, too. Especially when it earned him a hard, overwhelmed kiss. “Luke will be back tonight and earlier Jess said she should be done early in the morning tomorrow.”</p><p>Matt nodded, embracing the unfolding warmth at the news, and happy that his friends were okay. He kissed Foggy again for the hell of it.</p><p>“You must not be too worse for wear,” Foggy observed against his lips.</p><p>Not anymore. The world outside was loud and cold and still not-quite-right to his senses, but this bubble of peace existed, defying everything Matt had allowed himself to hope for.</p><p>And that was what he needed to keep facing—and fighting—nightmares.  </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This fic *may be* my attempt at catharsis for 2020.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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